UF-Alligator rack fight: Limit on free speech or move to be safer, cleaner?

Thursday

Jul 19, 2012 at 6:54 PM

A mandate to remove orange newspaper racks from the University of Florida campus has ignited concerns about free speech and editorial independence.

By Nathan CrabbeStaff writer

A mandate to remove orange newspaper racks from the University of Florida campus has ignited concerns about free speech and editorial independence.

UF has given the Independent Florida Alligator an Aug. 15 deadline to remove 19 of its signature orange racks from campus. The move is part of a plan to largely replace freestanding newspaper racks with black modular units owned by the university.

The Alligator has raised concerns that removing the racks would reduce visibility of the paper. University control of the paper’s distribution also raises serious First Amendment concerns, said Thomas Julin, a Miami-based attorney representing the Alligator.

“It gives the university a certain power over the Alligator and other publications that it didn’t have before,” he said.

UF officials portray the effort to replace the racks with modular units as being about aesthetic, environmental and safety issues. The university must remove the racks during hurricanes to prevent them from becoming projectiles in high winds, university spokeswoman Janine Sikes said.

UF is open to negotiations with the Alligator on issues such as placement of the racks and allowing them to be painted, she said, but hasn’t received alternative proposals.

“The University of Florida is willing to negotiate on all of the issues that they have concerns with — except moving into the boxes,” she said.

The Alligator has distributed the paper in its orange racks since it became independent of the university in 1973. UF trustees approved a regulation in 2009 that required printed materials to be distributed in modular units in approved locations, with limited exceptions.

UF charges publications $50 to $100 a year to use the units, giving them one-time credits of as much as $300 for each rack they replace. The campus had 407 of all sorts of newspaper racks, including about 80 used by the Alligator when the replacement effort started to be phased in, UF spokesman Steve Orlando said.

Alligator Editor Clare Lennon said she views the change to use the units as a tax on news and is concerned that the paper will be less visible when the switch is made. The Alligator has started a “Save the Racks” website at www.alligator.org/savetheracks opposing the effort.

David Denslow, a retired UF economics professor, studied whether the switch has so far affected the Alligator’s distribution. He said fewer papers were distributed in a little more than half of the locations studied, but the results were inconclusive and more study is needed.

A more important issue is whether student awareness of the paper is harmed by the move to racks that look alike for all publications, he said.

“The students who are sophomores, juniors and seniors, they know it’s the Alligator,” he said. “Now suppose you’re a freshman coming on and you see all these black stands … You’re not keying in on that this is the student newspaper.”

The Student Press Law Center hasn’t dealt previously with similar cases involving student newspaper racks, said Frank LoMonte, the center’s executive director. LoMonte, himself a former Alligator editor in 1985, said the UF policy has the potential to be a national test case.

The constitutionality of the policy likely would depend on whether the university’s motives were genuine and not meant to hurt the paper, he said.

“If you’re going to say that the boxes are dangerous, you’re going to have to point to some concrete reason to believe that,” he said.

Orlando said UF’s support of the Alligator is shown by the fact that university relations spends about $28,000 annually on advertisements in the paper. Sikes said the university has been discussing the issue with the paper for about two years and needs resolution.

“Unless we put a deadline on making them do something, they’re not doing anything,” she said.

Julin — another former Alligator editor, who oversaw the paper in 1978 — said the debate hearkens back to the free-speech controversies that led the Alligator to become independent from UF. Lennon said she’s concerned about the path on which the university is headed.

“What happens if we run an editorial or something that someone in the administration doesn’t like, five, 10 or 15 years down the road, if this is in place?” she said. “I don’t want there to be a threat to unbiased and independent news.”

Contact staff reporter Nathan Crabbe at 338-3176 or nathan.crabbe@gvillesun.com. For more stories on the University of Florida, visit www.thecampussun.com.